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From: mcgregor%hplabs.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.mail.headers
Subject: Sendmail munges addresses containing dollar signs.
Message-ID: <1328@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 7-Sep-85 15:54:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.1328
Posted: Sat Sep  7 15:54:47 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Sep-85 03:43:29 EDT
Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA
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  ---------- "Sendmail munges addrs containing dollar signs" ----------

We have begun mail service with a mail system in which users names contain
dollar signs ($). We are using Sendmail on an Amdahl 470 running V.2 Unix.

Whenever we mail to an address containing a dollar sign, or receive mail
which contains a dollar sign in the To address field it gets munged by
Sendmail. Specifically, the mail will be delivered with the TO field
slightly altered.  For example, mail to going into sendmail like this,

        To: mvs!$scott       becomes

        To: mvs!cott         while

        To: mvs!$will        becomes

        To: mvs!hpcccill

The reason for this strange behavior is that sendmail is interpretting
the imbedded dollar sign and trailing character as a sendmail macro.
"$s" in our sendmail.cf file isn't defined, so it comes out null, while
"$w" is our local host name, so it comes out expanded as the host name.

Now, only the text of the TO message is munged, the user name and host
name passed as parameters to the mailer get the original name containing
the dollar sign.  Thus, at present, we can get the right parameter but the
wrong text, or, by using sending to $$scott we can get $scott to appear in
the To: field, but then the parameter (still $$scott) is wrong.

Our question is how to get sendmail to pass the dollar sign containing
addresses without munging them. We have already identified ways of dealing
with these dollar sign addresses non-transparently, but we are still
wondering if we can pass mail containing dollar signs without munging
them.   If anyone has already done this and can
send me the proper sendmail.cf config definitions, I would appreciate a
copy. Also, if someone hasn't done this but finds this an interesting
puzzle and comes up with something that should work send me a copy.
(I doubt that others in this forum would have much interest, so it
is probably best to mail to me directly.) Thanks!


            Scott McGregor
            ...!hplabs!hpccc!mcgregor
            HP Corporate Computing Center